Mark II

The one-time wonderkid who later became a top target for the tabloids has finally found contentment as a full-back at Wolves

Thursday lunchtime. Training is finished for the day. The rain spatters off the glass roof of the refectory and he wonders how he is going to fill in the time. The next hour is taken care of, anyway. Mark Kennedy will spend it talking on familiar old themes. He’ll trot out the well-worn stories of loss and gain and renewal, and pinpoint where exactly he sits on this current road to Damascus.

Except Kennedy isn’t humming that old tune anymore. He’s tired of hearing it himself. He’s happy with what he is now and where he is at. He’s 28 and carries a few flecks of grey around the edges that hint gently at a care-worn past from which he would like to distance himself.

There are things he’ll never be again, though, and for that he considers himself blessed. He’ll never be the whizz-kid who once ran riot in